Dec 3

BLOG: Women in Louis XIV's Life

When I was in college, I had several good friends who were French majors. As it turned out, the head of the French department was taking a group of students to Paris for a summer study at La Sorbonne. I was taking one of his French classes, and even though I wasn't majoring in the language, he asked me if I was interested in the summer study opportunity.

Naturally, the answer was "YES!" I doubted my parents would be on board with the idea, but it turned out that they were, and so I spent three months in France in 1985, learning French. It was one of the most enthralling times of my life, and one of my favorite places was the Palace of Versailles. I went there at least three or four times, strolling the gardens, walking through the Hall of Mirrors, and climbing the grand staircase. Back in the 80's historical sites weren't as over-crowded, so visiting the place was pure pleasure.

Therefore, I jumped at the chance to host this week's guest-blogger. Peggy Joque Williams' debut novel, Courting the Sun, takes place at Versailles, among other places. Williams has written a fabulous blog this week, and it's especially intriguing to read about the women who shared Louis XIV's life--and often--his bed. According to my dear friend, bestselling author Margaret George, this book is fabulous. And with a grandiose cover that's as sumptuous as Versailles itself, I invite you to dive into Williams' work and enter 17th century France. I know I'll be reading it myself!

Read ON, everyone!!!

ALL ABOUT THE BOOK

“A rich journey through 17th century France in all its aspects—its bucolic countryside, the still-unmatched splendor of the court of Louis XIV, and the struggling French colony in Canada.”

~ Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth I, The Autobiography of Henry VIII & The Memoirs of Cleopatra~

France, 1670. On her sixteenth birthday, Sylvienne d’Aubert thinks her dream has come true. She holds in her hands an invitation from King Louis XIV to attend his royal court. However, her mother harbors a longtime secret she's kept from both her daughter and the monarch, a secret that could upend Sylvienne’s life.

In Paris, Sylvienne is quickly swept up in the romance, opulence, and excitement of royal life. Assigned to serve King Louis's favorite mistress, she is absorbed into the monarch's most intimate circle. But the naïve country girl soon finds herself ill-prepared for the world of intrigue, illicit affairs, and power-mongering that takes place behind the shiny façade of Versailles.

This debut historical novel from Peggy Joque Williams captures the vibrancy and quandaries of 17th century life for a village girl seeking love and excitement during the dangerous reign of the Sun King.

The Women in Louis XIV’s Life

By Peggy Joque Williams

When I talk about my book, Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles, people often confuse Louis XIV, the monarch in my story, with his great-great-grandson, Louis XVI, who was married to Marie Antoinette, and who along with her lost his head in the French Revolution. But it was Louis XIV, the Sun King, who a century earlier set in place conditions that eventually resulted in the revolution and the untimely royal beheadings. My protagonist, Sylvienne d’Aubert, is a wholly fictional character, but the women she encounters in the book, women who had great influence over Louis XIV, were very real.

Louis XIV was a singular man, a complex man. He liked to ride and hunt, and he loved to dance in grand ballets. He supported the arts, theatre, and science. He uplifted France economically and expanded its colonies; but he engaged in costly wars and spent a decade and more building Versailles—at great expense to the common people. He repressed all religions but his own, and yet was not allowed to take communion because of his marital infidelities. He was king for seventy-two years, and during that time a number of women had significant influence over his life and his reign.

Louis became king when he was just five years old. His mother, Anne of Austria, served as regent until he became of age to rule on his own. She and King Louis XIII had been married twenty-three years before they had young Louis in 1638.

Queen Anne declared the baby “a gift from God” and named him Louis Dieudonné (the God-given). She raised Louis to believe he was ordained by God to be king, and that belief influenced the way he led his life and governed his country. God made him king, therefore he had divine and absolute power to rule France and her people as he saw fit.

Queen Anne’s influence was so strong that Louis hid his early mistresses from her. He did not wish to face her displeasure. After she died, he openly flaunted his mistresses, raising them almost to the level of the queen.

Maria Theresa, a princess of Spain and Louis’ cousin, was chosen by his mother to be his spouse and queen. When Louis was a teenager, he had fallen in love with a girl named Marie Mancini. She was of noble birth, but not of royal blood, and Anne would not allow Louis to marry her. His queen was chosen for political and economic reasons. Maria Theresa was the daughter of King Philip IV of Spain (brother to Anne) and Queen Elisabeth (sister to Louis’ father) and thus a perfect match in the eyes of Louis’s mother. The young couple was married by proxy; Louis met her afterward outside Paris and escorted her to his palace with a great parade.

Queen Marie-Thérèse (as she became known in France) was short, stout, and not particularly attractive. She was a devout Catholic, had difficulty learning the French language, and never took to French social life (though she enjoyed playing cards and gambling). She never gained political influence in Louis’ court, but despite that and his many mistresses, Louis is reported to have been affectionate toward her. Legend has it that Louis promised his queen he would always waken in her bed. The result being that regardless of what time he left his mistress, he would crawl into bed with Marie-Thérèse to see the sun rise. Marie-Thérèse bore Louis six children. Unfortunately, only one of them survived to adulthood.

Louis’ first mistress of note was Louise de la Vallière. Louise came to court as maid-of-honor to Henriette-Anne, the wife of Louis’ brother Philippe. Louis was likely having an affair with Henriette, and he came to know Louise through her. Because his mother was still alive, Louis went to great lengths to keep this affair secret, though are there really ever any secrets at court? Louise was his mistress for six years, from 1661 to 1667.

After the Queen Mother’s death, Louise became Louis’ maîtresse-en-titre (official mistress) and took an active role in court life, wielding influence over the arts, literature, and philosophical discourse. She was religiously devout and believed her affair with Louis was divinely required. She bore five children with Louis. Even though she was eventually replaced by her good friend Madame de Montespan and spent the rest of her life in a convent, Louis legitimized her surviving children, signaling that Louise de la Vallière was a woman he respected.

Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart de Mortemart, Marquise de Montespan, simply known as Madame de Montespan, and called Athénaïs by the king and their inner circle, pursued and captured Louis’ interest while Louise de la Vallière was still at court. Athénaïs was married and already had two children, who lived with their father. Her husband, the Marquis de Montespan, was not at all happy about his wife’s new position at court and let it be known, until Louis threatened to throw him in prison.

A woman of great beauty, wit, and charm, once she caught Louis’ eye, she quickly became the new maîtresse-en-titre.

Where Louise had been accommodating, Athénaïs was demanding. Over the years, Louis gave her vast amounts of jewelry and anything else she desired. He awarded her the Château de Clagny and built her a pleasure pavilion at Versailles, called the Trianon de Porcelaine. Her apartment at Versailles was larger than the queen’s, and she filled it with exotic plants and animals, gifts from Louis and others. She quickly accumulated great political power at court, so much so that when she entered a room, people stood for her just as they would for the queen. The only person Athénaïs was not allowed to disparage or make fun of with her renowned wit was the queen. During the two decades she was Louis’ mistress, Athénaïs bore him seven children. The five that survived were legitimized and given titles, land, and the surname de Bourbon, Louis’ own name.

Athénaïs’ reign as maîtresse-en-titre was brought to an end when she was implicated in a scandal known as the Affaire des Poisons. A young woman who had caught Louis eye, Marie Angélique de Scorailles, and ended up his bed, died unexpectedly. Whispers abounded that Athénaïs had poisoned her. Witnesses claimed to have seen her visiting a witch, Catherine Monvoisin, known as La Voisin. Other more ghastly details, such as a Black Mass, were also alleged. However, her guilt was never proven, and all evidence of Athénaïs’ potential evildoing was suppressed by the chief of Paris police at Louis’ behest. Eventually, Athénaïs’ was retired to a convent with a hefty pension.

Long before Athénaïs’ reign ended, another woman managed to capture Louis’ attention. Her name was Françoise d'Aubigné.

Françoise was the widow of the poet Paul Scarron and a friend of Athénaïs who had recruited her to serve as governess to Athénaïs’ children with Louis. Madame de Scarron, as she was known, never became a mistress to Louis. Rather, they became intimate intellectual and spiritual friends, she a trusted advisor to him. No doubt Louis tried to bed her, but though she was born a Huguenot, she became a devout Catholic and would not engage in an affair with a married man. However, sometime after Queen Marie-Thérèse’s death in 1683 (at age 44), Madame de Scarron and Louis married in a private ceremony. She was never recognized as queen—indeed, she never seemed to want to be queen—but she is said to have been regarded as the second most powerful person in France from that point on. She also had great influence over Louis’ spiritual life; as a result, he became more devout and never had another mistress again, at least not an open one.

Françoise de Scarron outlived Louis by four years; he reigned until he was seventy-six, outliving both his son and his grandson (thus his great-grandson became Louis XV, and his great-great-grandson Louis XIV).

Who had the most influence in Louis’ life? His mother, Queen Anne, who shaped the man and monarch he was to become? Athénaïs de Montespan who rivaled Queen Marie-Thérèse in social and political power for two decades? Or Françoise de Scarron, who was the only woman to keep him out of her bed until they wed, and whose influence over King Louis XIV was so great she never felt the need to be queen? I’ll leave it to you to decide.

My main sources:

Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (2004), Eleanor Herman

Love and Louis XIV (2006), Antonia Fraser

Athenais: The Life of Louis XIV's Mistress, the Real Queen of France (2007), Lisa Hilton

The Sun King (2012), Nancy Mitford

Images:

Sculpture of King Louis XIV - Image by Ibrahim Diallo from Pixabay

Portrait of Louise de La Vallière - Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Madame de Montespan - Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Anne of Austria – Wikimedia Commons

Portrait of Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon – Wikimedia Commons

ALL ABOUT PEGGY JOQUE WILLIAMS

Peggy Joque Williams is the author of Courting the Sun: A Novel of Versailles and co-author of two mystery novels, On the Road to Death’s Door and On the Road to Where the Bells Toll, written under the penname M. J. Williams. She is an alumnus of Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

A retired elementary school teacher and avid researcher, Peggy's fascination with genealogy and her French-Canadian, European, and Native American ancestry inspires her historical fiction. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.